"No, sir. He said quite positive he would not see anybody." James looked the clerk full in the face. "I was afraid something might 'ave 'appened down in the—ah—?"
Mr. Clark's face lit up with a kindly light.
"No, indeed. It's nothing like that, James. We never had so good a year. You can make your mind easy about that."
"Thank you, sir," said the servant. "We'll have the doctor drop in to see him, and I hope he'll be all right in the morning. Snowy night, sir."
"I hope so," said Mr. Clark, not intending to convey his views as to the weather. "You'll let me know if I am wanted—if I can do anything. I will come around first thing in the morning to see how he is. I hope he'll be all right. Good-night. A merry Christmas to you."
"Good-night, sir. Thankee, sir; the same to you, sir. I'm going to wait up to see how he is. Good-night, sir."
And James shut the door softly behind the visitor, feeling a sense of comfort not wholly accounted for by the information as to the successful year. Mr. Clark, somehow, always reassured him. The butler could understand the springs that moved that kindly spirit.
What Mr. Clark thought as he tramped back through the snow need not be fully detailed. But at least, one thing was certain, he never thought of himself.
If he recalled that a mortgage would be due on his house just one week from that day, and that the doctors' bills had been unusually heavy that year, it was not on his own account that he was anxious. Indeed, he never considered himself; there were too many others to think of. One thought was that he was glad his friend had such a good servant as James to look after him. Another was pity that Livingstone had never known the joy that was awaiting himself when at the end of that mile of snow he should peep into the little cosy back room (for the front room was mysteriously closed this evening), where a sweet-faced, frail-looking woman would be lying on a lounge with a half-dozen little curly heads bobbing about her. He knew what a scream of delight would greet him as he poked his head in; and out in the darkness and cold John Clark smiled and smacked his lips as he thought of the kisses and squeezes, and renewed kisses that would be his lot as he told how he would be with them all the evening.
Yes, he was undoubtedly sorry for Livingstone, a poor lonely man in that great house; and he determined that he would not say much about his being ill. Women did not always exactly understand some men, and when he left home, Mrs. Clark had expressed some very strong views as to Livingstone which had pained Clark. She had even spoken of him as selfish and miserly. He would just say now that Livingstone on his arrival had sent him straight back home.